Visions of Empire
Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature

Richly illustrated 1996 collection on how Pacific plants and peoples were depicted by European explorers.

David Philip Miller (Edited by), Peter Hanns Reill (Edited by)

9780521172615, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 21 July 2011

394 pages
24.4 x 17 x 2.1 cm, 0.63 kg

This 1996 collection examines the discovery of plants and peoples of the Pacific in the eighteenth century by European scientists and travellers. The contributors conceptualise the process of discovery, which involved active cultural solutions to problems of representation, rather than mere collection and passive depiction. These solutions both reflected and created visions of empire. Studies of the voyages of Banks and Cook investigate their mobilisation of resources. Other essays examine the economic and theological roots of Linnaeus's natural history, and the importance of the sexual system of classification in ideas of human nature and social order. Visions of Empire also tackles the cultural roots of botanical representations and the interpretations of encounters with other peoples. Its interdisciplinary approach maps out a more sophisticated understanding of representations of nature and society.

1. Introduction David Philip Miller
Part I. The Banksian Empire: 2. Joseph Banks, empire, and 'centers of calculation' in late Hanoverian London David Philip Miller
3. Agents of empire: the Banksian collectors and evaluation of new lands David Mackay
4. The antipodean exchange: European horticulture and imperial designs Alan Frost
5. Disciplining disease: scurvy, the navy, and imperial expansion, 1750–1825 Christopher Lawrence
6. The ordering of nature and the ordering of empire: a commentary John Gascoigne
Part II. The Uses of Botany: 7. Purposes of Linnaean travel: a preliminary research report Lisbet Koerner
8. Botany in the boudoir and garden: the Banksian context Janet Browne
9. 'On the banks of the South Sea': botany and the sexual controversy in the late eighteenth century Alan Bewell
Part III. Representations of Living Nature and their Uses: 10. 'Implanted in our natures': humans, plants, and the stories of art Martin Kemp
11. Images of ambiguity: eighteenth-century microscopy and the neither/nor Barbara M. Stafford
12. Global physics and aesthetic empire: Humboldt's physical portrait of the tropics Michael Dettelbach
13. Seeing and understanding: a commentary Peter Hanns Reill
Part IV. The Indigenous Environment: Anthropological Perspectives: 14. The scientific endeavor and the natives Ingjerd Hoëm
15. Mediated encounters with Pacific cultures: three Samoan dinners Alessandro Duranti
16. Visions of empire: afterword Simon Schaffer.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]